Urban-Themed Video Games 'Basically Dead'? 346
simoniker writes "Midway CMO Steve Allison has been talking about why he thinks the urban game genre isn't worth entering, suggesting of the cancelled Snoop Dogg/John Singleton collaboration Fear & Respect, which was in development at Midway: 'We killed Fear and Respect... because we have enough data-points to know the hood thing is basically dead. It would be dead before it came out. And you don't want to come out on a dead vibe.' Do people really not care about GTA-style urban shooters any more?"
FP! (Score:5, Insightful)
-uso.
Re:FP! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:FP! (Score:2, Interesting)
I was amazed how many of these games got passed off as a "GTA clone" or a blatant rip-off or bandwagon... I don't see the hundreds of tolkien genre games all being called rip-offs of Rogue or Wizardry. I don't see every new racing game being dismissed as
Re:FP! (Score:2)
Re:FP! (Score:2)
Kill the Sharks!
Kill the Police!
Kill the Yakuza!
Add some bribary, sex, and double crossing, and you have the next cookie cutter Urban game!
Re:FP! (Score:4, Insightful)
Kill the kobalds!
Skip crappy FMV!
Kill the giant red bees!
WHOA LEVEL UP!
Kill the giant *blue* bees (now you are a true badass)!
Re:FP! (Score:2)
I do, at length. Seriously, I know Tolkein was great and everything, but can we get a decent non-starwars sci-fi or post-apocalypse MMOG please? Or just something without any goddamn ORCS?
Re:FP! (Score:2)
City of Heroes is oodles of fun... in the sense that you can call any MMORPG "fun."
Re:FP! (Score:2)
Me have body by Superdyne!
-- anonymous Troll in Skyway City
Then again, maybe not. It IS fun, though.
Re:FP! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:FP! (Score:2)
AO wasn't too bad if they hadn't killed the game with such a bad release.
Re:FP! (Score:3, Insightful)
First, what WW2 games have copied Wolfenstein in gameplay? If you're referring to modern games, Call of Duty and Day of Defeat are both better and more original than the Q3 engine Wolfenstein.
Second, every FPS was called a Doom-clone back in the day, until games existed that looked better or had better gameplay.
Look at some modern GTA-clones
When everyone does it... (Score:4, Funny)
Spoiled white kids don't want to be into "Hip Hop / Gangsta Hood" or even "Goth". It has been way too overdone.
Unfortunately many of them are geting into "Emo/Screamo" bullshit.
Here let me make an analogy for geeks and nerds: Having a Linux desktop today is not as cool as having one say 10 years ago. Too many people have one, hell almost anyone can burn a knoppix cd and boot one. If you want to be cool in the geekdom now you have to run exosteric shit like Hurd on an UltraSparc under an emulated virtual environment or some crazy shit like that. Oh, is that GNU/Hurd, *wink* my bad.
Re:When everyone does it... (Score:2)
You like Emo (Score:2)
Re:When everyone does it... (Score:3, Funny)
Mod parent down for using non-car related analogy....
New Ideas (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New Ideas (Score:3, Funny)
Re:New Ideas (Score:2)
You might want to try this [rockstargames.com] game, then
Re:New Ideas (Score:2, Funny)
Re:New Ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as reality-based shooters go, you're never going to see much set in the pre-repeating-rifle world (I'm aware that there are some mods for this, but it's not exactly common), and WWI is out because no one wants to play "sit in a trench and get gangrene", and any war between the US Civil War and that one isn't well-known enough to be made in to a game.
As for the post-depression wars, no one cares about Korea (sad but true, I bet most people aren't even sure of which decade that was in), Vietnam's confusing and hard to make a game about ('You are in a very dark forest. You are likely to step on a landmine.' -]go west 'You step on a landmine and die. Game over. [l]oad, [q]uit, [n]ew game')
For everything after Vietnam, the tech is just too advanced for it to be much fun. For most wars, the game would consist of lots of missions with objectives like, "secure the area around the already-bombed target. Don't worry, everyone's probably dead, we just want you to check", and, "accept the surrender of some surviving tank crewmen. We blew up all their tanks from 50 miles away, and they're waving white flags, just go put 'em in zip ties and get 'em back to the POW camp". Anyway, as with Korea, no one really gives a damn about most of those wars. Grenada? Panama? Hell, lots of people probably don't even realize that we've invaded those countries within the last half-century. The only one with enough recognition to sell games would be the first war in Iraq, and that'd lose too many sales due to the tastelessness factor brought on by making a game like that while we're over there fighting again.
Plus, where's the danger of losing in these games? Sure, you might fail and die, but it's not like there's a real chance of the "good guys" losing. And if they did, so what? What are the stakes in most of these wars? So, your side loses face and its reputation suffers? One small, inconsequential country remains Communist or at least "too far" left? Oooh, so scary!
WWII just happens to have the perfect balance of tech, action, plot, characters, and participants. It lends itself to games that are, if not great (most aren't), then at least decent, and they're certainly easy (and relatively cheap) to write and design.
Re:New Ideas (Score:2)
One of the most fun shooters I ever played was "Outlaws", specifically because some of the guns were a pain in the ass to keep loaded. Walking down the middle of the street while thumbing cartriges into my rifle, ducking behind a barn to reload my six-shooter, lighting dynamite with my cigar butt... I felt like I was living a freakin' John Wayne movie. It was pure bliss.
Unfortunately, it was also not very popular. I guess not many people share my tastes.
Re:New Ideas (Score:2)
Re:New Ideas (Score:2)
Holy crap. Deathmatch on a train. With shotguns.
That would put the "twitch" back in "twich shooters."
Re:New Ideas (Score:2)
Plus, there's two much variety of moveme
Re:New Ideas (Score:2)
I think I'd rather just flip a coin rather than challenge some guy at a video game he owns which I've never even played.
Or, better yet, blitz-chess with a 5-minute timer.
Re:New Ideas (Score:2)
I recall a Quake mod that had a blunderbus. It took about 30 seconds to reload (and moving would restart this time), and you rarely found more than 3-4 shots worth of ammunition. It was incredibly powerful though; a single shot could kill most people at short to medium range. If you missed though, you didn't get a second shot, because they would catch you and attack you with a sword before you reloaded.
Re:New Ideas (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why we have futuristic shooters. In the future, apparently, we have all kinds of technology, but we're mostly just interested in using it to do cool stuff
"Sir. I don't wanna go in there and stab the mechademon with my power-genk 3000. Can't we just throw grandaes at it?"
"No son, then you wouldn't get to do that cool jumping strafe move."
Re:New Ideas (Score:2)
"OK, now you've stolen the secret papers and we know where the madman and his secret lab are located. He'll notice a big group of soldiers, so you have to go alone. Blow it to hell, son. We're all counting on you."
"Uh, why don't you just hit it with a cruise missile?"
"Er... um... just shut up and go."
"Right, then."
I guess it's kind of like how most futuristic ray and beam weapons (Star Wars blasters, and especially Star Trek phasers) are vastly inferior to the
Re:New Ideas (Score:3, Funny)
Says you! I'm dying for "France-Prussia 1870".
How about "Zulu"?
Scenario #1, "Rourke's Drift"
(choose Zulu side, choose to be spearman)
(charge enemy)
*bang* "Arrgh!" (you die)
(respawn as spearman...)
Greneda (Score:3, Funny)
You are on a beach, there are palm trees and a bottle of rum.
Drink Rum
You are on a beach in the shade of palm trees, slightly tipsy. A steel band is playing Soca. You are hoding a bottle of rum
Shoot students.
ok
Assault college
ok
Shout badass things
return to base
Game over
Hell you could play it on a phone with Java capability!
Re:New Ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
Check out America's Army [americasarmy.com] for a modern-day FPS.
* I wasn't in Iraq, but I spent nearly 2 years in Afghanistan, and let me tell you, they weren't waving any white flags there.
Re:New Ideas (Score:3, Funny)
Soldier of Fortune [ravensoft.com]
Training for real warfare -- gorilla warfare.
Re:New Ideas (Score:2)
(formerly 1@16850)
Let me be the first to say: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:2)
I assume that by "orcs and zombies" you actually mean "super mutants and ghouls"?
*Loads turbo plasma rifle*
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:2)
We've got someone who took issue with a sig related to Norse mythology due to something from Stargate:SG1, and that was rebutted by a reference to Star Trek:TNG.
Truly, a masterful exchange.
*golf clap*
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:2)
If you're referring to Thor, you do realize that Thor is really just a little gray guy who's getting his ass kicked by the Replicators?
Hey! You got your Skiffy in my religion! Oh, and for the record, the all father spent 9 days stuck to a tree with his own sword and didn't die. Beat that, Jesus!
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:2)
Let's get back to the proper business of killing orcs and zombies.
screw that - go shadowrun and stick the Orcs and Elves in a bar in seattle working for some Megacorp based in Chiba city.
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:3, Funny)
Straight, fo shizzle.
Urban Culture (Score:2)
Urban-themed? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a BS marketing term that dances around race.
also, FTFA
Quartile maybe?
Re:Urban-themed? (Score:2)
Re:Urban-themed? (Score:3)
It's a BS marketing term that dances around race.
What would you prefer? Are they making a black game? A hispanic game? A minority game?
GTA is a collection of extreme parodies of pretty much every racial stereotype, including the white trailer trash and fibbies. "Urban/gangsta" is pretty much the best tag you can put on it.
Re:Urban-themed? (Score:2)
Re:Urban-themed? (Score:2)
Re:Urban-themed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right -- because there aren't a disproportionate number of ethnic minorities living in urban areas, leading to a strong correlation between "urban" culture and their ethnic culture.
The only thing worse than racism is denial.
Re:Urban-themed? (Score:2)
So I guess what you're saying is that I, as a white guy born and raised in NYC, the most urban of all US cities, cannot partake in "urban culture" because I'm white?
Who's racist now?
Assuming "urban" means "black" IS RACIST. It is pretty much the definition of racist. Not only that, it is el
Re:Urban-themed? (Score:3, Funny)
...unless you *are* a minority.
Re:Urban-themed? (Score:3, Funny)
Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the notion that they're just out of touch with their demographic? Every time I see an "urban" game (Need for Speed: Most Wanted, I'm looking at yoooooou~) it's always come off as being poser and totally fake. What can you expect? You're getting a bunch of 35 year-old, predominantly-white, middle-class geeks to develop your "hip" urban game!
And NFS:MW wasn't even the worst offender... I can think of many worse...
Careful there, Busta Rhymes (Score:3, Informative)
I am a 35 year-old, predominantly-white, middle-class geek, and I like my urban combat set to the preconceived sounds and images pumped out by Hollywood.
Werd.
Maybe as a gimmick (Score:4, Insightful)
No such thing as a dead genre? (Score:2)
Re:Maybe as a gimmick (Score:3, Interesting)
Not suprising when you look at the appeal of puppies. Go to any mall that has a pet store and note the demographic that pause to look at the puppies in the front display - the only people who don't stop are the ones that weren't going to notice the store anyway (mostly focused on getting to their destination). The puppies don't even have to do anything! Other stores can only hope for a small fraction of th
The next big theme should be (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The next big theme should be (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The next big theme should be (Score:4, Funny)
Pirates v Ninjas v Zombies v Robots v Monkeys
and I'd pre-order it if it were
Pirates v Ninjas v Zombies v Robots v Monkeys v Pimps, since that would be proof of the vibrant "Urban Theme"
Re:The next big theme should be (Score:3, Funny)
"v Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders" would be the first paid expansion. The TnA factor would really drive sales, and of course that way there would be time to get the animations right
Then
"v Dinosaurs"
and then
"v Episcopalians"
The more I think about it, the more this sounds like the greatest game of all time.
Re:The next big theme should be (Score:2)
Just imagine.
Ninjas v Pirates v Robots v Cowboys v Monkeys v WCW v Commandos v Terrorists
The episodic content writes itself. Got a widely publicized dog mauling case on the news? Tack a "v Vicious Dogs" onto that list and BOOM, welcome to Richistan, population: YOU.
Actually a good idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine yours
You could have four totally different play experiences. Set up the quests so that some that are trivial for one group are impossible for others since the tactics simply don't transfer between them. Forget the fake "Alliance v. Horde" setup where you make the races fight: ninjas and robots simply can't team up since a stealthy assassin isn't going to be any more effective teamed with something out of an anime nightmare. It would be hell to balance, but could be done.
Frankly, after looking over a bunch of MMORPGs (WoW, CoV, Planetside, AO, EVE, Auto Assault) I'm not impressed. The only truly different one is EVE and I don't have the time to have a second career which seems to be about the only way to really get into that game.
Re:The next big theme should be (Score:2)
Yes, And Here's Why (Score:2, Insightful)
grumpy old man (Score:5, Insightful)
Sprite based 2D games could violate physical laws and we didn't care. Better yet, games didn't have to exist in an analog of the known universe at all.
We got what we asked for, and damn it, it's boring.
Re:grumpy old man (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously. Before you know it, someone's gonna come out with a game where you get to walk around and do chores and simulate interactions between people via little virtual people. And I bet people would buy it. Oh wait...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:grumpy old man (Score:2)
Sprite based 2D games could violate physical laws and we didn't care. Better yet, games didn't have to exist in an analog of the known universe at all.
We got what we asked for, and damn it, it's boring.
So
Re:grumpy old man (Score:2)
Amen, brother (Score:2)
All we get in the way of innovation is new environments for running around shooting stuff.
Running around shooting stuff indeed. It's the video game equivalent of Tom Cruise movies. The formula works! Stick with the formula! Long live the formula!
Re:grumpy old man (Score:2)
Which differs from hoverboards and rooms-flipping-upside-down how?
teleporter doors
psychic projections (that can kill people).
Just another type of ranged weapon.
I agree with your point to some extent - Games with a high degree of physical realism can always find ways to allow the player to violate the laws of physics. But I more strongly agree with the GP, that much of the problem here comes f
Re:grumpy old man (Score:2)
GTA? (Score:2)
GTA was never exclusively about hip-hop culture and was about various gangland activities. It wasn't until the same jokers who brought you material of the same level of sillyness in True Crime that the increasingly out of date hip-hop culture tied it's marketing wagon to the scene. I can't even fathom why people find such dated 90's material entertaining myself, and wonder when the next culture trend will finally emerge away from the overstaurated MTV-bli
Meh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, sorry Snoop, but gamers are savvy these days. Not since "Cool Spot" or "Yo, Noid!" for NES has a catchy license ever been enough to sell a game. In fact, it tends to raise a red flag for most gamers nowadays. "Why do they need to CGI-scan Joe Blow Rapper into the game, or have Billy Bob Actor do a voiceover? What crappy gameplay are they trying to distract us from? Is this another "Bruce Willis in Apocalypse?"
Simple answer? (Score:2)
GTA Clones (Score:2, Insightful)
However, the "urban" genre isn't dead. The problem with a lot of these games is that "urban" is considered a marketing tool, and the games released with the "urban" theme haven't been very good.
I'd argue that there has to be a certain amount of enthusiasm when
Snoop update (Score:2)
....sorry.
Aren't we talking about tailfins here? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what we're talking about is superficial stuff -- decoration. And if it's decoration, it's subjection to fashion. And if it's fashion, it's subject to going-out-of-fashion.
It's like cars. In the immediate post WW2 years, there was a melted, "jelly bean" look to car body styles. Shortly thereafter, in the era of the nuclear strategic bomber, cars started to get taller and taller tail fins, culminating in a Caddie my father in law had which I swear must have had tail fins 18 inches (45cm) high. Since this was well beyond the ridiculous, the styles swiftly changed so that the tail fins were cut off, leaving a vestigal ridge about an inch high and several inches wide. The result was angular and gave cars a massive and muscular look. My father in law had one of these too (do a google image search on 1972 Plymouth Fury [google.com]. Then the energy crisis came, and cars got smaller, and aerodynamics started to chip away a the broad shouldered look, and finally we had the original Ford Taurus, which was back to the "jelly bean" look.
So, maybe "gangsta" is out until we've churned over a couple generations of gamers.
Dead on (Score:2)
Exactly. GTA's cool was not about the "Urban theme" (does Italian Mafia even qualify as "Urban"?? Maybe literaly, but thats not what that they mean when they say that.) It was about introducing a new style of game play - a level of interactivity and freedom that was not widely available before. It is widely available now, so if you want to catch interest of people you need to introduce something new. Be that "new" in "urb
The New Hotness (Score:3, Funny)
New hotness: ping pong games
Publishers Don't Understand GTA (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of publishers trying to copy GTA by focusing on its gameplay, they instead focused on the hip hop vibe. What they don't seem to realize is that GTA was popular despite its urban flavor, not becaues of it. GTA is more similar to Oblivion than it is to Def Jam: Fight for NY. You want to have a GTA or Oblivion style hit? Create an unquie world and make it open and give the player a lot of different stuff to do. It's a little puzzling that the open world genre is really lacking in quantity right now despite the huge success of the few games that have done it right.
Remember all the side scrollers that came out after Super Mario Bros? What if instead of side scrollers, publishers figured Mario was popular because it featured a fat plumber and all games of the NES era all featured plumbers or fat blue collar workers, but totally ignored the side-scrolling action that made Mario fun. That's exactly what's happening with the companies that tried to ape GTA by putting focusing on MTV style hip hop rather than on open gameplay.
I want more urban games (Score:3, Insightful)
Urban MMORPG (Score:3, Interesting)
Ignoring the intended meaning of 'urban' as in 'all cities are violent and rap plays in the background 24/7 and people shoot each other', I'd quite like a MMORPG in an urban setting.
By that I mean modern to futuristic, since technically Ironforge in WoW counts as an urban setting. Basically, I'm sick to death of witches and wizards and magic spells. I'm also discounting the Anarchy Online style of city: a bunch of simple blocks of texture rationalising a collection of shops.
What I want is a proper interactive city environment. A properly scaled big city would be easily big enough for a MMORPG, and wouldn't require the player to consciously suspend their disbelief because of the distorted geography like all MMORPGs so far. Graphically, you could have more detail up close where it counts, because you wouldn't need to render miles and miles of landscape.
Example: Midgar [wikipedia.org] would make a good environment for a MMORPG
And no, this [toprpgames.com] doesn't count
Re:Urban MMORPG (Score:2)
Re:Urban MMORPG (Score:2)
You could have different servers represent different cities and areas of cities, and to change servers, you find a "train station", an "airport", or something else of that nature. All it would do is transfer your account to a different server and load you up in your new environment, ready for more action in the World of Conspiracies.
who would of guessed this? (Score:4, Interesting)
50 cent: Bulletproof
True Crime: Streets of New York (or as it SHOULD of been called, True Crime: Glitches of new york)
True Crime: Streets of LA
Driv3r
Shadow the hedgehog (come on, you can't deny that's what they were going for with this one)
the only ones that were even remotly worth playing in the "urban genre" were Def Jam: Fight for New York, GTA San Andreas that's all I can think of actually.
Maybe if they had gotten people who wanted to make a GOOD game instead of making a Cash grab game the genre wouldn't be a sinking ship with endless clones of two games.
GTR:Princeton IAS (Score:3, Funny)
You start as a small time patent clerk named Al working your way up the ladder of Organized Physics. Busting up dice games run by God, setting up a convention for tense-hos, projects that are the Bomb, and so forth.
Re:GTR:Princeton IAS (Score:2)
I'm no expert, but I don't think anyone in the "urban culture" uses the term "Mack Daddy" anymore. Probably not for about 15 years. Hint: if you see it used on
Not that entertaining (Score:4, Interesting)
I think for most, playing video games is a brief escape from everyday life. Why both escaping into an environment that's identical to real life? I'd rather be slaying epic dragons or bugs, etc. (Is there such a thing as an epic hoodie?)
It's not the genre (Score:4, Interesting)
Duh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't predict the decline of a genre because somebody got it all exactly right and nobody has caught up just yet.
rhY
Re:Duh... (Score:2)
Are you serious? San Andreas had...
+ sub-par graphics
+ awkward control when walking
+ mentally handicapped AI
+ extreme consolitis on the PC
+ awkward menu system
+ no multiplayer (when it would've been wildly popular and very possible)
+ odd and annoying camera movement (heaven-forbid I'd like to keep the camera view *slightly* higher when driving without it automatically snapping back every few seconds)
+ lame mini-games claimin
Well, (Score:2)
Maybe by putting someone in charge with a REAL game development background (most likely game design) the CEOs/CMOs/ would give games that are actually fun a chance. Til then, expect cold, heartless products designed for making money ONLY. (Kinda like Eisner's Di
He is absolutely correct. I'm a video game artist. (Score:3, Interesting)
Thats not to say that rap isnt done, but the old NWA gansta shit we grew up with... is.
Its become a farce. Its now a cartoon of what was always stupid and ridiculous no matter how cool we thought it was to rebel along side with it.
GTA games are exhausting. Thats not to say that a new GTA wont be a big hit because GTA is far more than just "ghetto hood style" Its only recently they've taken it deeper into that bullshit genre and have cartooned it in many respects.
GTA San Andreas, was of no interest to me, and as my friends play it... we mock it. "We got Respect!" Yeah... great... now what.
GTA San Andreas has some great environment modelling and the idea of a virtual city and free reign will never get old as long as your ability to "live" in that city becomes more real. In other words, the goal is a virtual city without much scripted behavior. More of a do as you please, close to life experience as possible... Thats the goal of the GTA virtual city phenomenon.
The ghetto aspects of it is a farce. Its a marketing tool. The run around and kill things wont get old... well it does, but it has to be changed and given new life through new game play ideas within the virtual city.
The ghetto games are pathetic. Infact i was working on a game concept for a major hip hop persona. The game to this date has not gone through. They were just interested in the marketing aspects... not the game. They didnt care much about the game as long as they could use their hip hop image to sell it.... as if thats all it took to make a game popular.
The ghetto hood thing is dead. We're adults now and the kids are different. Sure theres still good hip hop music, and the teens enjoy it, but its not the same as it was. The whole gangsta thing is a joke now and i'm thankful for that. There are much better things in life to promote... even if i was a fan of much of a lot of the music.... It's nice to see people growing up, including myself.
There are better things out there.
That does not mean for a second that the genre wont still be around in some small form. Did mafia films die out completely? No. But the mass marketing appeal, the sure hit, the bullshit used by marketers... can no longer work using the ghetto slant... Because its become a joke.
And on a side note.. Hayao Miyazaki rules.
Just another brick in the wall (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I've asked myself the same question, many times... about war games, space strategy games, adventure games, just about anything single-player. The market has changed so much. Even Star Wars Galaxies, itself an MMORPG, was reinvented so that Sony could attract a more casual (or, if you like, dumber) fan base. The last time I set foot in a game store, it was all MMORPG, MMORPG, World War II sim, MMORPG... oh, and Sims 2.
A decade or so ago, a lot of games were still crap, but there was at least more variety of crap. It does seem like the games market now is becoming ever more monolithic -- especially since most PC games seem to be console ports anymore. It's kind of depressing. I'm barely out of my 20s, and already I feel like some wheezy old man when it comes to video games -- "Whatever happened to Descent, Wing Commander, Sim City? Get the hell out of my bushes..." etc.
Who needs a new GTA or GTA ripoff... (Score:3, Funny)
Duh! GTA was taking the piss! (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the fun of the GTA series is seeing how a bunch of weirdoes in Scotland will take the piss out of American pop-trash culture in the next mission - but the (US-developed) imitators all missed the point and played the whole thing straight. No wonder people got bored very quickly - if you're not taking the piss, there's literally nothing to hold your attention.
Wishes (Score:2)
How about another Fallout game? Maybe some company could revive the System Shock series. That would be TRULY kick-ass. Or, as with Deus Ex, just release the same game as SS2 but with new graphics/physics. Hell,
I agree (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm surprized we don't see more re-skinning of older games like that. There have to be a lot of gamers now that have never seen System Shock (one or two) and would love it.